Al Quaida Back In Business?

22 killed in 2 suicide attacks in Iraq - Yahoo! News

22 killed in 2 suicide attacks in Iraq By HAMID AHMED, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 29 minutes ago BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber attacked the offices of an anti-al-Qaida group that has joined forces with the U.S., killing 12 people Friday in one of Iraq's most violent provinces, police and the U.S. military said. ADVERTISEMENT A second attack at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi soldiers and another of the U.S-backed groups killed 10 people, an Iraqi army officer said

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Suicide bombings seem to be increasing by the day. Today with the always chilling female
bomber.

Tragic, where is George W. Bush when you need him.

December 7, 2007Refugees Caught Between Deportation and Death Threatsby Ali al-FadhilyBAGHDAD - Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis driven out of their country by violence are now faced with detention abroad, or a homecoming to death threats.More than two million Iraqis, in a population of about 25 million, have taken refuge in many countries. Only a few have won official status as refugees. Most refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and many other countries stay on as illegal residents, facing threats of deportation and imprisonment."To deport an Iraqi refugee is to issue a death warrant," Ali Jassim, an Iraqi journalist recently deported from Lebanon told IPS in Baghdad. "The Lebanese authorities are applying regular migration rules to Iraqis, meaning that most Iraqis in Lebanon will be deported."

Refugees Caught Between Deportation and Death Threats - by Ali al-Fadhily

Where is George W. Bush when you need him. Invade a sovereign country, turn it into a killing field and then drag his feet on bringing the lions share of these people into the US. The most vulnerable of Iraqi's are those who have helped the American's and will face certain death if they're deported back to Iraq. Most of these refugees are in the surrounding states such as Syria and Jordan. For 2007, the State Department has promised to process 7,000 application for asylum in the US. This out of 2 million Iraqi's displaced outside of Iraq, and 1.5 million displaced internally in Iraq. Many of which are in hiding to avoid murder by Al Quaida or Shiit death squads. Next are excerpts from ,excellent article from McClatchy, that although a bit dated, lays out the snails pace of the Bush Administration doing it's share to alleviate the huge refugee problem it created.

	Published on Thursday, February 8, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers US Faced with a Mammoth Iraq Refugee Crisis by Warren P. Strobel One out of every seven Iraqis has fled his or her home or sought refuge abroad, the largest movement of people in the Middle East since the war that followed Israel's creation in 1948, according to United Nations officials and relief workers. Every day, violence displaces an estimated 1,300 more Iraqis in the country; every month, at least 40,000. Last year, 202 refugees from Iraq were allowed to resettle in the United States. Against that backdrop, the Bush administration is moving - belatedly, in the view of critics - to address a problem that it's widely seen as having created by invading Iraq in March 2003. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- In his just-released budget, President Bush asked for $35 million to help Iraq's refugees in fiscal year 2008, plus $15 million in supplemental funding for this year. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a private nonprofit group, had urged Bush to seek $250 million as part of a supplemental war funding request. --------------------------------------------------------------- The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated in a report last month that there are as many as 2 million Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, primarily in Syria and Jordan. Another 1.7 million people are displaced within Iraq, the UNHCR said. Some of the refugees fled during Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's reign, before the U.S. invasion. But the exodus has accelerated since the bombing of a Shiite Muslim mosque in the city of Samarra last February. Non-governmental groups working with refugees say that outside aid can't come fast enough, because Syria and Jordan are hinting at closing their doors. Other neighbors, such as Saudi Arabia, have accepted almost no refugees. The Saudis are building a barrier along the border with Iraq, "In six months, it will be too late," said Kristele Younes of Refugees International, an advocacy group. "We're not seeing the U.S. do much, frankly." Senior U.S. officials sidestepped the question of whether Washington bears special responsibility for Iraqis fleeing the violence. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Obviously what we're trying to do is to create circumstances to reduce the numbers of refugees who want to come to the United States or elsewhere," Tobias said. Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey told a Senate hearing last month that the United States had admitted 466 Iraqi refugees since 2003. She ascribed the small number to the Department of Homeland Security's stringent security review of each applicant. She said that number could expand to as many as 20,000 this year. The U.S. Committee for Refugees said Wednesday that it welcomed Rice's initiative and urged the administration to expedite resettlement of Iraqis who worked for the U.S. or allied militaries. But even if the United States and other countries open their doors wider, only a small fraction of Iraq's legions of refugees would be resettled abroad. The Geneva-based UNHCR last month asked for $60 million from foreign donors to protect and aid the refugees. Of that amount, $40 million has been pledged, and $9.1 million received, said agency official Tim Irwin. The UNHCR acknowledged that even if the appeal is fully subscribed, it would help only a fraction of displaced Iraqi families. It's "a drop in the bucket," Younes said. The crisis is likely to get worse before it gets better. UNHCR projects that the number of internally displaced in Iraq could grow to about 2.7 million by year's end. A recent report by the Washington-based Brookings Institution said that if Iraq spirals into all-out civil war, U.S. troops might have to establish "catch basins" along Iraq's borders to care for tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fleeing the violence.

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This article was written in February, 2007 and the pace of asylum requests to the US has increased slightly, the number of displaced Iraqi's has soared to about 4 million'

Below are excerpts from a State Department press conference held just last month.
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Processing Iraqi refugees continues to be a priority for DHS, particular for USCIS. As of November 21st, 2007, we've completed approximately 5,600 Iraqi interviews. One point that I do want to make is that there's a difference between cases and interviews. A case can be composed of more than one person. A case can involve as many as five people. So when we talk in terms of cases, it's -- usually the numbers are always going to be smaller than the number of people that we're talking about. I just wanted to make sure everybody understood that.

QUESTION: Yeah, can I just ask both of you if the Administration still believes it has a moral obligation to assist these Iraqi refugees, particularly those who have worked for the U.S. Government as direct hires or those who have worked as contract workers and their families? And if it does, why is this so slow? You know, the previous examples of massive influxes of refugees, you're looking at almost 200,000 were admitted from Vietnam in nine months. In 1975, you had the situation with the Kurds who were taken en masse to Guam to be processed there. This case, these people are just sitting around and it's like wait and wait and wait in Casablanca. Why is it taking so long?

I should note in this respect that the Administration has a request before the Congress for $195 million in assistance for Iraqi refugees that we hope will be acted upon soonest. In fiscal year 2007, the PRM Bureau provided nearly $123 million in humanitarian assistance for Iraqi refugees, including $39 million towards the UN -- the Joint UN Education Appeal and $18.5 million to ICRC's Iraq appeal. We also gave another $18.5 million to NGOs providing health, education and other humanitarian assistance to Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
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Anyway you cut it, it is shameful the paltry efforts the Bush Administration has made to grant asylum to the lions share of Iraq refugees whose plight it created. It is downright criminal to not immediately grant asylum to those Iraqi's who have and are risking their lives by helping our country. These people have already been vetted by the US military so their is no excuse for holding up their application while they are being hunted by insurgents and death squads.
For instance, more than 22,000 refugees have been received by European counties, with more than 8000 of those to tiny Sweden.

Currently, we are spending 30 million a day for military operations alone in Iraq. To help alleviate the refugee problem we spent a meager 123 million in 2007 for assistance to aid Iraq refugees. Bush has requested the sorry amount of 35 million for fiscal year 2008. Meanwhile, the ranks of Iraq refugees has swelled to 4.5 million.

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Tim Buckley -- Once I Was

Have you ever remembered a line or melody from a song that you loved, but can't quite recall the name of the song or the artist. This winsome tune about the expendability of the male of the species was like that for me. For about 20 years, I strained my memory and spent many hours on the web guessing at key words to google [for the past 10years] all to no avail. Then a few months ago I ordered a documentary from Netflix that I had viewed when it came out in 1988. The documentary was produced by HBO and was called Dear America, Letters Home From Vietnam. Of all the Vietnam docs, this one in my opinion is the best one. Well anyway, this Tim Buckley tune was part of the soundtrack and was likely where I had first heard it.

Was Bush Behind the Iran Report? - Bob Baer

Was Bush Behind the Iran Report?Tuesday, Dec. 04, 2007 By ROBERT BAERGeorge Bush Iran nuclearPresident Bush discusses a National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.Brooks Kraft / Corbis for TIMEArticle ToolsPrintEmailReprintsSphereAddThisRSSClick here to find out more!Bombing Iran, it seems, is now off the table. There's no other reasonable take on the latest National Intelligence Estimate that concludes Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.Related ArticlesThe Fallout from the Iran Nukes ReportA US National Intelligence Estimate concludes that Iran is not an imminent nuclear weapons threat. What does this change?The Fallout from the Iran Nukes ReportThe Fallout from the Iran Nukes Report Monday, Dec. 03, 2007 By TONY KARON Ira...If North Korea, Why Not Iran?If North Korea, Why Not Iran? Thursday, Oct. 04, 2007 By TONY KARON Kim Jong I...Why the Tough Talk on Iran?President Bush must serve up a pretty convincing hamburger: Ever since his Kennebunkport cookout wit...More Bad Intelligence on Iran and IraqYou would think by now the Bush Administration would have drained the well of bad intelligence on Ir...But there is also no doubt that the Bush White House was behind this NIE. While the 16 intelligence agencies that make up the "intelligence community" contribute to each National Intelligence Estimate, you can bet that an explosive, 180-degree turn on Iran like this one was greenlighted by the President.And explode is what the hawks in and outside the Administration are about to do. They were counting on Bush being the one President prepared to take on Iran. As recently as last month, Bush warned of World War III if Iran so much as thought about building a bomb. Bush's betrayal is not going to go down well. The neocons, clinging to a sliver of hope, will accuse the intelligence community of incompetence, pointing out that as late as 2005 it estimated "with high confidence" that Iran was building a bomb.Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, put the best face on the new report, claiming that it was our diplomacy and saber rattling that forced the Iranians to back down. As for the intelligence community, it explained its reversal by hinting that new intelligence had surfaced.Neither explanation is entirely accurate. The real story behind this NIE is that the Bush Administration has finally concluded Iran is a bridge too far. With Iranian-backed Shi'a groups behaving themselves, things are looking up in Iraq. In Lebanon, the anti-Syrian coalition and pro-Syrian coalition, which includes Iran's surrogate Hizballah, reportedly have settled on a compromise candidate, the army commander General Michel Suleiman. Bombing Iran now would upset the fragile balance in these two countries. Not to mention that Hizballah has threatened to shell Israel if we as much as touch a hair on Iran's head.Then there are the Gulf Arabs. For the last year and a half, ever since the Bush Administration started to hint that it might hit Iran, they have been sending emissaries to Tehran to assure the Iranians they're not going to help the United States. But in private, the Gulf Arabs have been reminding Washington that Iran is a rabid dog: Don't even think about kicking it, the Arabs tell us. If you have to do something, shoot it dead. Which is something the United States can't do.So how far is Iran from a nuke? The new NIE says 10 to 15 years, maybe. But that's a wild guess. The truth is that Iran is a black hole, and it's entirely conceivable Iran could build a bomb and we wouldn't know until they tested it.Yet for now we should at least be happy with the good news: Armageddon is postponed.

Was Bush Behind the Iran Report? - TIME

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A Ray of Light

by Ray McGovernFor those who have doubts about miracles, a double one occurred today. An honest National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program has been issued, and its "Key Judgments" were made public.With redraft after redraft, it was what the Germans call eine schwere Geburt – a difficult birth, 10 months in gestation.I do not know how often Vice President Dick Cheney visited CIA headquarters during the gestation period, but I am told he voiced his displeasure as soon as he saw the first sonogram/draft very early this year and is so displeased with what issued that he has refused to be the godfather.This time Cheney and his neocon colleagues were unable to abort the process. And after delivery to the press, this child is going to be very hard to explain – the more so since it is legitimate.

A Miracle: Honest Intel on Iran Nukes - by Ray McGovern

Ray McCgovern can seem sometimes like an absent minded professor, but I trust his judgments on CIA and intelligence matters.
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The main points of the NIE:

"We judge that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program…

"We assess with moderate confidence Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007.

"We do not have sufficient intelligence to judge confidently whether Tehran is willing to maintain the halt of its nuclear weapons program indefinitely…

"We judge with moderate confidence Iran probably would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.

"We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be technically capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015."

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I think we will learn in the days to come the reason for the delay will have a name - Dick Cheney. So much bullshit from the Bushies, sometimes it's hard to tell whether their that stupid or kicking up dust to fool the American people. Maybe this NIE is why he had to have his pacemaker jump started a while back. In the days to come, the neocons led by Darth Cheney, will be spinning their asses off trying to create all the mischief they can to push Bush into disregarding the NIE and launch the military strikes,on Iran they crave so passionately. Problem is with all 16 intellegence agencies stating their  likely is no Nuke program currently in Iran, what''s a neocon to bomb. But then it's never been about Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions. What they seek is regime change and a chance to vindicate their insane ideology that America's military power can be an instrument of diplomacy to force US hegemony on real and perceived enemies of the west. Bush's statement today that his opinion of Iran hasn't changed is not encouraging.

Ray McCgovern states the situation perfectly.
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Having reached these conclusions, it is not surprising that the NIE's authors make a point of saying up front (in bold type), "This NIE does not [italics in original] assume that Iran intends to acquire nuclear weapons."

This, of course, pulls out the rug from under Cheney's claim of a "fairly robust new nuclear program" in Iran and President Bush's inaccurate assertion that Iranian leaders have even admitted they are developing nuclear weapons.

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Just So Long As I'm The Dictator

Email|Print| Text size – + By Charlie Savage Globe Staff / December 1, 2007

WASHINGTON - President Bush this month issued his first signing statement since the Democratic takeover of Congress, reserving the right to bypass 11 provisions in a military appropriations bill under his executive powers.

In the statement, which the White House filed in the Federal Register on Nov. 13 but which initially attracted little attention, Bush challenged several requirements to provide information to Congress.

For example, one law Bush targeted requires him to give oversight committees notice before transferring US military equipment to United Nations peacekeepers.

Bush also challenged a new law that limits his ability to transfer funds lawmakers approved for one purpose to start a different program, as well as a law requiring him to keep in place an existing command structure for the Navy's Pacific fleet.

"The Act contains certain provisions identical to those found in prior bills passed by the Congress that might be construed to be inconsistent with my Constitutional responsibilities," Bush's statement says.

"To avoid such potential infirmities, I will interpret and construe such provisions in the same manner as I have previously stated in regard to those provisions."

By referring only to objections voiced in past documents, Bush's new signing statement struck a less aggressive tone than those he issued during the years when his own party controlled Congress.

In the past, Bush's assertion that he could bypass laws was backed by the invocation of broad theories laying out the scope of a president's power to defy congressional statutes.

In a further sign that the White House adopted a muted tone, the new signing statement also said nothing about two higher-profile provisions in the bill that limit presidential power: One law prohibits the military from using foreign intelligence information that was collected illegally, and the other forbids expending funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq.

As lawmakers drafted the bill earlier this year, the White House warned Congress that the illegal intelligence and Iraq-base provisions "impermissibly" infringed "on the president's constitutional authority" over national security and foreign affairs.

But Congress kept the provisions in the final bill and Bush's statement did not mention them.

Analysts said the president's less aggressive tone may be an effort to avoid reigniting a controversy that erupted last year after it came to light that Bush had used signing statements to challenge more laws than all previous presidents combined - including a torture ban. Congress held hearings about signing statements and the American Bar Association called for an end to them.

"They have clearly edited themselves," said Christopher Kelley, a political science professor at Miami University of Ohio who first analyzed the new statement on his blog Thursday. "They've taken out all the rhetoric about executive power."

But Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, denied that there was any "public relations" motive behind the change. Shorter signing statements, he said, are "just easier."

"It's been said," Fratto said. "It's our position and it hasn't changed."

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And wingnuts call Hugo Chavez a dictator.

GI - Expendable Government Issue

At Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 1st Lt. Elizabeth White-side listened last week as an Army prosecutor outlined the criminal case against her. The charges: attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq.

Isn't this just awful. A soldier tries to kill herself and instead of the help she needs gets a court martial. When I was in the Army, I saw shit like this all the time.
And I bet the prosecuter and judge claim to be God fearing Christian men.
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"Military psychiatrists at Walter Reed who examined Whiteside after she recovered from a self-inflicted gun wound in the stomach diagnosed her with a severe mental disorder, possibly triggered by the stresses of a war zone. But Whiteside's superiors considered her mental illness "an excuse" for criminal conduct, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post."
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And I wonder what "excuse" these soulless assholes use to call themselves human beings.
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"At the hearing, Wolfe, who already had warned Whiteside's lawyer of the risk of using a "psychobabble" defense, pressed a senior psychiatrist at Walter Reed to justify his diagnosis."
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Awe, yes. the "psychobabble" defense . Take the slacker out back and shoot her. She obviously is a drag on a Godly nation. And for the sake of mental health purity in the military we must erase this stain on America's correctly righteous image as a superpower only with super soldiers. This is what we get for an accountable volunteer military. It gets to create it's own sense of. justice even when it's opposite of what the average civilian would approve.
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"But outside the Pentagon, the military still often deals with mental health issues by relying on the judgment of combat-hardened commanders whose understanding of mental illness is vague or misinformed."
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Herein lies the fault of the military justice system in cases like these and others. The commander of a unit gets final say on all judgments of the military court. Kind of like the Mullah's in Iran.
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"Under military law, Soldiers who attempt suicide can be prosecuted under the theory that it affects the order and discipline of a unit and brings discredit to the armed forces. In reality, criminal charges are extremely rare unless there is evidence the attempt was an effort to avoid service or endangered others."
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"mens rea" or guilty mind is a bedrock principle of American criminal law. It doesn't matter in the military as the commander is the final arbiter on whether or not lt. Whiteside had a guilty mind. I am praying this case gets dropped. What a choice for Miss Whiteside of a dishonorable discharge or being prosecuted for a crime that could give her life in a military prison. I say the only crime here is for the American people to allow such horseshit to exist in their Army with knuckledraggers like the prosecutor, judge, and unit commander involved in this case.

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